Cause I\u27m Young and I\u27m Black and My Hat\u27s Real Low : Race, Hip-Hop, and Transformations in the NBA During the Late 1990s and Early 2000s

Race and racial tensions have long been pressing concerns in professional athletics in the United States. Issues of race have been of particular importance to the National Basketball Association (NBA) since African Americans compromise 77 percent of the league\u27s players. As such, this work examines the ways in which the media and the NBA responded to and managed the new generation of black players during the late 1990s and early 2000s while marketing to primarily white audiences. This time period is important in that it was unapologetically coined the \u27thug era\u27 by sports media and basketball fans alike, and the \u27thug\u27 label was used almost exclusively to describe young, black athletes who didn\u27t fit the traditional \u27black star athlete\u27 mold. During this period, the NBA took several steps to ensure that players returned to being model black athletes. By imposing a dress code, levying fines and suspensions, selectively leaving certain players off of Olympic rosters, and creating NBA Cares, league officials asserted what they felt a respectable star black athlete should look like. Further, by positing black athletes as role models and questioning their morals, the media presented black athletes in the NBA as a threat to traditional family values. Thus, this research explores the vilification of the new generation of black NBA stars that were coined \u27thugs\u27 in the 1990s and early 2000s